Although less than half of Russians believe that a certain level of democracy exists in the country, citizens are becoming increasingly optimistic about Russia’s democratic prospects, a survey published on Monday by the Russian independent pollster Levada Center shows.
The number of those who think that Russia is a democratic state has doubled to 8 percent since 2010, the survey, conducted in late February, indicates. Another 40 percent of Russians – 8 percentage points more than in 2010 – said the country is only partly democratic.
Meanwhile, about one-third of citizens (31 percent) do not believe that democracy has taken root in Russia, although their number has dropped 5 percentage points since the 2010 poll. The number of pessimists who believe that Russia is becoming less democratic has also decreased, to 14 percent from 20 percent in 2010.
Forty-seven percent of those polled defined democracy as a combination of freedoms, including freedom of speech, media freedom and freedom of faith. For 24 percent, democracy is “economic prosperity;” another 6 percent of the respondents said a democratic state is one that respects the rights of minorities and where the minority complies with majority decisions.
The poll, conducted on February 24-27, involved 1,600 residents in 45 Russian regions, with the margin of error not exceeding 3.4 percentage points.
